The Labour Party intends to introduce a Bill in the Oireachtas to combat religious exclusion on admission by means of a religious test (baptismal certificate).
“There is a clear tension between provisions in the Constitution that impact on schools admission policy. On the one hand, the Constitution makes it clear that the State is entitled to fund denominational schools and that those schools are entitled to provide religious instruction during the school day.
On the other hand, the Constitution requires that legislation on State aid for schools must not prejudice the right of any child to attend a State-funded school without attending religious instruction at that school.
As Mister Justice Donal Barrington described it in the Supreme Court, if a school accepts public funds then any child, no matter what his or her religion, is entitled to attend it and has the right not to attend any course of religious instruction at the school”.
http://ow.ly/pWMh301JDfb
The Bill is available here: http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/bills/2016/4816/b4816d.pdf